St Kilda captain Jarryn Geary relieved not to be competing with Nick Riewoldt in 2018

After spending much of his first year as St Kilda captain avoiding competing with predecessor Nick Riewoldt's leadership style, Jarryn Geary is looking forward to concentrating more on leading the Saints in his own way in 2018.

Geary has declared that the time had come for him and his leadership group to take over from Riewoldt and collectively become the voice of the club.

This year, though, the emerging leaders won't have the luxury of leaning on the likes of Leigh Montanga, Sean Dempster and Riewoldt, who all retired last year.

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They'll now be forced to step up to the plate and Geary anticipated he would probably benefit from Riewoldt's absence.

"Certainly those guys were invaluable over the last couple of years for not only myself but the rest of the guys that were leaders of the football club," Geary said at Moorabbin after making a spectacular arrival at the Saints' spiritual home via helicopter on Tuesday.

"Having those guys there and us being able to sponge a lot of knowledge out of what they have been able to do as leaders for the football club for a number of years has been great.

"Obviously they're gone now but we're pretty confident we've got some really strong leaders that are going to lead the club in the next phase of their journey.

"There's certainly no doubt that Nick was a leader of the club for a long time and a great captain and had that essence that he was still a great leader of the football club and probably stood out in games at times last year where he was still probably the main man.

"So I guess that will probably help me. Last year I tried not to compete with him, he still led in his own way, so was my biggest conscious effort was not to try and compete with him, so this year I won't have to do that.

"I think the five of us going forward will be the voice of the club. Nick obviously did that for a long time but it's our turn to take over."

Despite being a somewhat reluctant captain, Geary was "very humbled" to get the nod of approval from the St Kilda playing group for the second year in a row.

"The actual title of captain doesn't sit comfortably with me, but what I am really comfortable with is the fact that the playing group really backs me in and wants me to lead them out every week ... it's something I'm really proud of," Geary said.

"I'm not sure I'll ever sit comfortable with being an AFL captain when there's been so many guys before me that have been such great players.

"I think you learn a lot. Early days I probably over thought a few things. [I've] had a bit of time to reflect on how I went last year and there are certainly things I can grow in and certainly things I'll look to improve in. But I certainly feel a lot more comfortable now than I was this time last year."

It's been 52 years since St Kilda last tasted premiership success but Geary took "great confidence" from two of the league's biggest premiership droughts being broken in the past two seasons with the Bulldogs (62 years) and Richmond (37) saluting in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

In order to be a chance to claim just the second flag in their history, the Saints will have to end their seven-year finals drought after once again narrowly missing the top eight last year. Geary didn't think they had to take a "big step" to feature in September this year.

"We think our best footy has been good enough throughout the last couple of years. It just hasn't been consistent enough and we're hoping we can produce that more often than not and not only make the finals but be contenders when we get there," he said.